All posts by Mike

Another knee-shortened ride and yes, sometimes cars could give me a bit more room

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride
Feeling a tad bit squeezed heading home across El Camino

Riding home last night was actually the “main event” in terms of effort; for some reason, everything seemed to click. I was on my bike, Kevin and Becky were in Becky’s car, both of us heading across El Camino. I remembered something from Kevin’s (bicycle) track sessions some years ago- at intersections, try to sprint across faster than the cars. Good way to practice sprinting. So I did, beating Kevin & Becky, but instead of easing off, it felt good so I just kept on going. One of my fastest solo efforts on the flat part of Jefferson, maybe ever. And when the road tilted up (Altamont) I still felt good, I still kept pushing. I never got that feeling that something was about to blow, and nothing ever did. Maybe it home in 11 minutes, 59 seconds. That was an honest time, too; I didn’t stop the garmin until I had a foot on the ground outside my garage.

This morning’s ride up Kings was quite different; Kevin’s knee was still bothering him, so we took it pretty easy, and sacrificed the West Old LaHonda section entirely. Too bad; we had a nice group, with Kevin, Kevin, Karen & even George showed up today!

As for the photo above, that’s from tonight’s ride home, heading across El Camino. I wasn’t sprinting across the intersection, but the car certainly was. Why it was so important to the car to fly through there and put the squeeze on me I don’t know. It wasn’t dangerous, just really annoying, and certainly a flagrant violation of the 3-foot passing law. You can, by the way, pass a cyclist closer than 3 feet, but not at full speed. Here’s what the law says about that-

(d) If the driver of a motor vehicle is unable to comply with subdivision (c), due to traffic or roadway conditions, the driver shall slow to a speed that is reasonable and prudent, and may pass only when doing so would not endanger the safety of the operator of the bicycle, taking into account the size and speed of the motor vehicle and bicycle, traffic conditions, weather, visibility, and surface and width of the highway.

Clearly, a car speeding to pass a cyclist is in violation of the law.

Shouldn’t it be the older guy with the knee issue?

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Shop news

A former Quarry now turned into a small lake
It was going to be our “Return to Pescadero” after a few weeks away from the usual Sunday loop, but Kevin’s knee was acting up, so we pulled over at the base of Old LaHonda and decided it wasn’t worth risking further damage. He figured he could make it to the top, but it wouldn’t be much fun. While stopped, we did get to fix a guy’s Di2 electric shifting problem (his cable had pulled out of the shift lever).

So instead of the coast we took one last ride to check out the dismantling of our Los Altos operation, a very slow ride because his knee wasn’t getting any better. In fact, by the time we got to the store, we decided it was going to be a one-way for Kevin, getting a ride back home with my wife, who was also able to pick up the computers and bring them up to our Redwood City operation.

While we’d deliberately chosen the easiest route possible heading to the store (mostly Foothill), I decided to explore a bit on the way back, taking advantage of the new Garmin Edge’s monstrous screen to check out roads I’d never been on. It’s pretty fun, actually, just cruising through the hills, trying every uphill direction you can that isn’t a dead end. My plan was to try and connect up with Moody, not knowing if it was possible, but figured I’d just stay “high” and keep heading north and eventually I’d get there. Along the way I discovered an old quarry that’s been turned into a small lake (shown in the photo above) and a “Not a through street” that most definitely does go through!

This was one of those rides where it just got more fun as I went along, feeling stronger all the time. By the time I finally did get to Moody I was able to push to a new PR on the climb, which was mildly surprising, but yeah, I was pushing pretty hard.

Hopefully next week will be back to normal. At least most of the angst closing the store will be over with; no more moving stuff from Los Altos into Redwood City from 9:30pm to midnight like tonight. Won’t miss that!